Music startup Baton secured $4.2 million in funding, the company announced today. Baton will use the new capital to further develop its product, grow its team and roll out new features.
Baton — founded by musician Gabe Warshaw — launched its private beta in 2022, allowing artists, producers, managers, A&Rs (reps responsible for talent scouting) and catalog administrators to share unreleased music, source new material, collaborate with others and ensure creators are properly credited and compensated for their work.
Baton aims to provide musicians who have had their songs reused or repurposed without their knowledge with a way to always see what happens to their material. Whether it’s a finished song, a single sample or a pack, Baton shows creators who individually have viewed their material, so they’re never in the dark during the collaborative process.
Additionally, the blockchain music collaboration protocol development company is building a decentralized infrastructure so creators can upload songs without the risk of their IP being stolen. There’s also an automatic payout system.
“Music has always been a part of my life. I was raised in NYC’s East Village by two artist parents and started playing drums when I was two,” Warshaw told TechCrunch. “Growing up in the music scene, and later working as a professional musician, I had a firsthand view of how challenging it can be for even the most talented creatives to support themselves from their work. After starting my career focused on physical infrastructure, Baton was born from a desire to build digital infrastructure that could address many of the problems I was seeing on a daily basis.”
Warshaw is also the founder of Brooklyn-based recording studio Prince Street Studios.
Baton claims to have helped connect hundreds of artists and protect the IP of thousands of songs. Notable clients include DJ Dahi, a Grammy-winning producer who works with Kendrick Lamar, Drake, J. Cole, Rihanna and Post Malone, among others; and A&R Sickamore, who has guided the careers of Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott.
“Baton is an awesome place to find up-and-coming talent that I would have never otherwise crossed paths with,” DJ Dahi said in a statement.
“It’s one of the few instances in music and tech where both the vision and execution just hit it on the head. This is the solution aspiring producers, established artists, and everyone in between has been waiting for,” Sickamore added.
The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures with participation from Techstars, Dorm Room Fund, NYU’s Innovation Venture Fund, the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship, Dark Arts, Franklin Templeton, Harmonic Future and angels in the music industry.
The investment will go toward hiring several engineering, product and marketing roles, as well as allow Baton to develop a mixed-media collaboration and rights management ecosystem for visual artists, filmmakers and designers.
Users can get early access to the platform by signing up on Baton’s website.
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